Tuesday, 10 April 2012

Sepia Saturday 121 : Flight

We are taking to the air this week in Sepia Saturday as we celebrate FLIGHT. On one level this is a celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Royal Flying Corps (suggested by Sepia Saturday contributor, Little Nell), but on another level it can be any type of flight : the flight of machines, the flight of birds and insects or simply the flight of fancy. My image is not of the Royal Flying Corps but the Australian Flying Corps and it features Captain Charles C Matheson (left) and Lieutenant C R Fenwicke, both of No. 3 Squadron, Australian Flying Corps (AFC) beside their RE8 aircraft (picture from the Australian War Memorial Collection via Flickr Commons). Whatever type of flight you take, please be at the Departure Gate on or around Saturday 14th April 2012.

Everyone seems to like the idea of having plenty of notice of future Sepia Saturday themes, so here is the updated rolling programme of future themes:

SS121 14 April 2012 FLIGHT
SS122 21 April 2012 GARDENS
SS123 28 April 2012 MAY DAY
SS124 05 May 2012 SMALL

All that remains is for me to wish you all a good flight aboard Sepia Saturday 121, your nearest emergency exit is being pointed out by the cabin crew now.

Sepia Saturday member Kristin has posted a list of Sepia Saturday themes on our Facebook Page and I have tried to get a feel of the views of SS participants with regard to the theme issue. I have therefore published the following post on our Facebook Page and have copied it here for those not on Facebook. Please let me have your views with regard to the choices I outline.

First of all, my sincere thanks to Kristin for putting together such a definitive list of Sepia Saturday "themes". Looking through that list, one or two things become apparent and are worth highlighting for the newer members of the group. Weeks 1 to 50 were not really themes at all as I would simply pick out a post from the previous week to highlight and use as the illustration for the current weeks' call. From week 51 onward I used an archive image as the header for the call and by week 60 many people had started using this as a kind of theme for their contribution that week. No theme was given, people were encouraged to search the image on the SS Blog to find a connection. By the time we got to SS100, most contributors had become themers and I started including a definitive theme title ( Film, Books, Scouts etc) with the weekly call. At all times, it has remained perfectly acceptable to ignore the suggested theme altogether and simply post an old image of choice.The latest innovation has been to give advanced notice of future themes and this seems to be popular. However advanced notice tends to favour definitive themes rather than interpretative themes (words are easier to list than images) but this is not an impossible difficulty to overcome.It would help me considerably to gauge the feeling of group members if I could conduct a simple Sepia Straw Poll to discover which people prefer between:-A. No theme at allB. A theme based on the interpretation of a given archive image (where you can search for your own link to the image, however imaginative)C. A theme based on a given category : such as trains, trees, or perhaps something less definite such as small and large.I think we should always allow the option for people to go off-theme whenever they want, but I would value your opinions on the three choices listed above. I will post this as a comment to the current SS Call so non-Facebook members can join in the discussion.Thanks, Alan Burnett

Hi all! I've now got my Acadianeire's Heritage site moved from WP to Blogger, so I should have less trouble keeping up with things here. Thanks so much to Kristin Cleage for her wonderful roundup of all our themes; that should help immensely!

I don't have much of the old flying stuff in my own history, but I've managed to pull together something and to give it a good Canadian twist. Enjoy!

Hi Barbara : The link you put up didn't seem to work so I have put a working link up and removed the previous one. To get a link to the post you need to do the following. Open your blog in whatever browser you are using and click on the title of the specific post. This will then load as a distinct page which you can copy the URL of. Paste this into the Linky list along with your name. In your case the URL was : http://blackmtnbarb.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/flight.html

I'm in flight this week, one of my favorites...I'd planned to repost some photos from my father WWII era but had something recent to share. I like Option C. Sometimes a theme is not for me. I did enjoy when we "freestyled" and posted whatever whim struck especially when we found those photos amidst our pesonal collections..

I would prefer Option B as far as themes are concerned. Although I have been following the themes every week. I have a ton of posts ready to go that are way off theme. You guys are going to get bombarded someday. haha. I would like to thank Kat Mortensen for featuring my blog on her blog and thanks Alan for featuring my blog here. You guys rock! :)

My post is up and on time!!! I am on theme and linked into my A-Z Challenge theme.

I always try and use the theme, a sort of personal challenge!

I am happy with B or C and do like having the theme details in advance so I can plan ahead. Thanks for the tip of the Facebook page - I didn't know there was one. I swear sometimes I live under a rock; I am so oblivious!

It must be a tiny touch of OCD that makes me want to post my Sepia Saturday post on Saturday--not a day early or a day late--which sometimes causes me to almost miss it entirely. It's still Saturday in my time zone, though, so I'm calling this one done. My photos feature my dad and a WWII U.S. military plane.

I mostly dropped out of posting for SS when themes became the "thing" to do. For me it took all the fun out of looking at SS posts: one more of the same thing, just a variation. (I have a hard time getting enthused about 30 photographs of airplanes, libraries, etc.) I vote for Option A (though I may start participating again if we go with Option B).

I loved Sepia Saturday when I first started and you highlighted a post from a previous week, Alan. I'm sure that was much more work for you than the way you do it now. Now I like how you're highlighting various online collections. That's good, too.

I haven't been on facebook much - didn't know about your post there. I had been thinking about themes that would give us a wider range of photographs, though. If we must do themes, what about expressions such as "surprised," "happy," "angry," etc.

Darn and the other 4 letter word, I thought I linked in last night and now see it did not or somehow it disappeared....so here I am again. Aside to Nancy, not necessary to follow a theme. I too prefer people, but enjoy the different sights so many share, and appreciate the personal stories a lot.

Now that I've read the comments, Alan. I vote for Plan B with maybe Plan C for those special occasions inspired by unusual photos. Sometimes the word is in the picture and other times the picture is in the words.

Thanks for taking the time to discuss this, I feel strongly about it and love learning more on this topic. If possible, as you gain expertise, would you mind updating your blog with more information? It is extremely helpful for me.

Sepia Saturday

Launched by Alan Burnett and Kat Mortensen in 2009, Sepia Saturday provides bloggers with an opportunity to share their history through the medium of photographs. Historical photographs of any age or kind (they don't have to be sepia) become the launchpad for explorations of family history, local history and social history in fact or fiction, poetry or prose, words or further images. If you want to play along, all we ask is that your sign up to the weekly Linky List, that you try to visit as many of the other participants as possible, and that you have fun.